King's Cross Station
Overview King's Cross railway station also known as London King's Cross, is a central London railway terminus opened in 1852. The station is located on the edge of Central London, at the junction of the A501 Euston Road and York Way, in the Kings Cross district and within the London Borough of Camden on the border of the London Borough of Islington. King's Cross forms the southern terminus of the East Coast Main Line, one of the UK's major railway backbones. Immediately to the west is St Pancras station, the terminus for international Eurostar trains, and the two stations share King's Cross St. Pancras tube station on the London Underground network. West of King's Cross are, in succession, St Pancras station, the British Library and Euston station, all within a few minutes' walk. The reconstructed and restored St Pancras is the new London terminus of High Speed 1 which replaced Waterloo International on 14 November 2007. Eurostar trains serve Lille Europe, Paris Gare du Nord and Brussels Midi-Zuid, and since December 2009 domestic Southeastern highspeed services serve Kent over the High Speed 1 route. Considerable regeneration effort has gone into the area in recent years, with the opening of new hotels and office space under construction. The Network Rail owned Power Signal Box (PSB) for the southern end of the East Coast Mainline is located at the country end of the station. The box controls trains as far Biggleswade and Royston, and also controls the Northern City Line. Peterborough signal box takes over after Biggleswade and Cambridge after Royston. First Capital Connect also control all their GN route trains from their control aka 'Service Delivery Centre' at King's Cross PSB. History *King's Cross was originally designed and built as the London hub of the Great Northern Railway and terminus of the East Coast main line. It took its name from the Kings Cross area of London, which itself was named after a monument to King George IV. The monument was demolished in 1845 *The platforms have been reconfigured several times. Originally there were only one arrival and one departure platform (today's platforms 1 and 8 respectively), with the space between used for carriage sidings. In later years, as suburban traffic grew, space for additional platforms was added with considerably less grandeur. The secondary building now containing platforms 9–11 survives from that era. *Before 1976, part of King's Cross was an intermediate station. On the extreme east of the site was Kings Cross York Road, with suburban trains travelling south from Finsbury Park calling here, then going underground using the York Road curve to join the City Widened Lines to Farringdon, Barbican and Moorgate stations. In the other direction, trains from Moorgate came off the Widened Lines via the Hotel Curve, with platform 16 (latterly renumbered 14) rising to the main-line level. Services to and from Moorgate were diverted via the Northern City Line from August 1976. Magical History *Platform Nine and Three Quarters *Utilising the Obliviator Headquarters and Invisibility Task Force, the platform that the Hogwarts Express travelled on was originally made before the Kings Cross Station was built. It took several years before the muggles were influenced enough by the supposed 'perfection' of the positioning of the station before the large station that houses Platform Nine and Three Quarters was built. Things to Note *It is one of the few access points to the Hogwarts Express, one of the others located in Hogsmeade Category:OMApedia A to Z Category:Locations